Of Giant Bomb. Bioware was obviously showing DA:I during Judges' Week at E3 this year, and that's what the Bioware reps were telling the judges.

Jeff's mentioned it a few times during Bombcasts, and has seemed to indicate that it was a point of emphasis and not an off-the-cuff statement.

I'm not trying to imply too much when I pull out the "blueprint" comment, which is why I'm not trying to be too definitive. Like I said, that could mean a myriad of things from quest structure, to game systems, to whatever. Jeff certainly hasn't offered any clarification about what the remark meant, if he even did ask for clarification from Bioware.

It sounds as if you know much better than the rest of us what the new Mass Effect will be like, so I'll defer to you. I'm just passing along an anecdote that comes directly from Bioware reps.

I've seen a few thoughts like this recently, and thought I'd weigh in as much as I can right now. I have a good idea where it's coming from. All of our games are using Frostbite now. We've said the next Mass Effect (and our new IP, but I won't expand on that yet) uses some of the technology from DAI. We've been enjoying building larger areas that you can explore with less friction, so that'll be there as well.

But after that, the next Mass Effect will be (and should be) drawing on its own rich and successful past more than what DAI would say it should do. Take the Mako, something we've already shown in prototype form. We had that in ME1, and bringing it back is more related to a feeling that we can do it much better than we did before and fulfill the original promise of that gameplay. That has nothing to do with DAI. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that dropping the older consoles has had more impact on the overall gameplay goals of the next Mass Effect game than what DAI successfully accomplished.

We're very proud of what DAI has achieved, but that does not set a "template" for what every other game we make needs to be. Each game franchise needs to innovate and improve their experience based on what's best for it, not just what another game had success with because "well that was successful".